candidate should be spinning. like taking candy from a -- breaking down the art of moderation. i want to hear more about the binders full of women. from binders to zingers, to debate drinkers, clicking to find the top searches in last night's showdown. >> my thoughts on one of the most decent men in politics ever. you are in "the cycle" for wednesday, october 17th. debate. what debate? it was more like a heavyweight fight. both punched and counter punched and then circled each other ready to pounce on the every word. no doubt about it, this was a much more energized and engaged barack obama. forced, aggressive and challenger in mitt romney. we are gong to get to more and

more of the debate tape shortly but we take you to the day after on the campaign trail. first, the president about two and a half nours ago in iowa. >> governor romney has been running around talking about his five-point plan for the economy. here's a tip. usually when a politician tells you he's going to wait until after the election to explain a plan to you they don't have a pleasant surprise in store for you. >> now mitt romney in virginia about 90 minutes ago. >> i love these debates. you know? these things are great. i think it's interesting that the president still doesn't have an agenda for a second term. don't you think that it's time for him to finally put together a vision of what he'd do in the next four years if he were elected? >> as i said, for the next hour, we'll review last night and look at how we move forward to monday's final debate in florida which is on foreign policy. and speaking of foreign affairs, near the end of the long island

cage match last night that libya came up and the president turned what was supposed to be a problem for him in to a big plus. >> the day after the attack, governor, i stood in the rose garden and i told the american people and the world that we were going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror. the suggestion that anybody in my team whether the secretary of state, our u.n. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, governor, is offensive. that's not what we do. that's not what i do as president. that's not what i do as commander in chief. >> governor, if you want to respond just quickly to this, please. >> i think it's interesting the president said something which is that on the day after the attack he went in the rose garden and said that this was an act of terror.

>> that's what i said. >> you said in the rose garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror? it was not a spontaneous demonstration. is that what you're saying? >> please proceed, governor. >> i want to make sure we get that for the record. it took the president 14 days before calling the attack in benghazi a terrorist attack. >> get the transcript. >> he did, by the way. >> can you say that louder, candy? >> he did call it an act of terror. it did as well take -- it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea of there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. you're correct about that. >> the first ever realtime act of fact checking in a presidential debate by a moderator and with that some say president obama won the debate. but before you say slam dunk, those same two polls showed that on the economy romney on the

economy was the clear winner last night. so, where do we stand? we'll just throw it around the table here first and trying to figure out where the race will go after last night. we saw a movement in the last two weeks toward romney. my question is, what was the source of that noouchlt? were these people who all year looking for an excuse to re-elect obama? they liked him personally and thought he came in under tough circumstances and wanted to give him more time and just so disheartened by the performance in denver? i think they got reassurance and they'll like obama. were they looking for an excuse to vote out obama and mitt romney wasn't giving them that excuse. they just didn't feel comfortable enough? if that's the kiss and romney gave them a comfort level in the first debate, i don't think he won last night and probably competent enough a performance to keep the vote earls in the fold for him. >> interesting to see how the polls shift based on this debate. what i thought looking at that

clip from libya, you're the president's best line of the night, please proceed, governor. the president was everything he wasn't in the first debate, governor romney with a number of unforced errors, including he brought up let detroit go bankrupt first. he gave the opening for 47% at the very end of the debate when he didn't have a chance to respond. and he also sort of strangely attacked the president over the pension in a discussion about immigration and, of course, the moment on libya and the binders full of women comment that we'll be talking more about but i think obama was fantastic but romney also did have some missteps and mised opportunities that really cost him the debate. >> i thought a clear resounding victory for obama. obama's best debate that we have ever seen on the national stage and i think a lot of the out alphaing of obama is in that libya moment and the moment of the debate. romney should have won that moment. the question from the questioner

is very difficult for obama and obama sort of pivoted out of it and made it in to now i'm going to scold you and romney tried to get it back and he tries to say, no, it's you. and what happens is candy embarrasses him and then obama gets to make a joke saying, you know, say it louder, candy. no black barbershop and making everybody laugh and winning and -- ultimately seems to me that libya is a tar baby an thing attack and keep getting stuck to it and he should be winning points on this and he doesn't. >> it's an awesome new guy to play the president last night. obama was great, back to his old self. i thought romney was great, too. he had stiffer competition but i have to say that i'll get to the good stuff that i thought romney did but that libya moment was a kick in the gut, not just because i wanted that moment to be good for romney, putting politics aside, you know i'm invested in this story, and the

disappointment to me was that where this was a clear opportunity for romney to continue this line of questioning that we have had for the president and the administration on libya, now the story is romney got it wrong. instead of the story being libya is a mess abe we need answers so at least for a couple of days i think he took away progress we have been making on the story. has nothing to do with politics. i left that debate very despondent because of it. >> all right. well, there's a resounding verdict. >> hang out. >> tears in the coffee. >> bring in howard fineman of "the huffington post" media group. howard, i want to pick up on the libya thing because this is the second time now since benghazi attack that romney really stepped in it on the issue of the attack. my diagnose sis is he's sort of a victim of i would say right wing media because there's a caricature of obama as an apologize first foreign policy

president that the right pushed and believed in for four years and seemed like romney bought in to that with the statement on that initially a few weeks ago and doesn't seem to jive with anybody else thinks about this president on foreign policy and national security. >> well, first of all, the headline of the day so far is that s.e. was despondent. i mean, that says it all. and i think that that moment was important not only for the substance of the libya exchange and the questions about benghazi and how mitt romney has kind of got stuck in something that if he'd left it alone had good sense to leave it alone it would be a more powerful weapon for him pair doxically. what i thought was so fascinating is watch mitt romney, the not nice guy mitt romney move in for what he thought was the kill shot there, the clincher and that he had

superior knowledge, he had the president backed in to a corner and so forth and the president just basically said, come on. come on in. and then, counterattacked i thought very, very skillfully and exposed an aspect of mitt romney's character that people are going to look at. i agree with steve that first time around and the first debate mitt romney appeared and lo and behold he wasn't the -- didn't seem to be the sort of evil guy that all that hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising created but here in the second debate, looking at mitt romney more closely, looked at him closely in some less appealing aspects of his public character came out especially in this exchange. >> i need to hear my s.e. crying in their coffee this weekend but i know what "snl" will do this weekend. i noticed that obama out-alphaed mitt romney. that they had the physical moments of coming together and

then the president would find a way to sort of like turn his back to him or make him look smaller or less alpha man. did you notice that? >> what i noticed is that the president, yes, they got in it in the middle of the ring. it's interesting to watch over the years as these town hall events have candidates who stray further and fourther from the seats, practically go in to -- waiting for them to go up in to the audience next time around like the late night talk shows and a piece of theater. i have never seen a debate like this. i thought the secret service was going to have to rush in to separate the two of them. i also thought that the president as long as we're discussing this, the president was very good at retreating back to his corner sort to speak at a strategic moment and having confronted romney he then backed away and let romney keep standing out there and looking exposed, if you will. >> chasing him almost around the

seating there. >> yeah, yeah. but then going back and saying, hey, not me. i'm the gentleman here. the president would say. >> right, right. >> in effect. leaving mitt romney out there arguing with candy. it was cleverly done. and i don't think it doesn't matter. i think that people get cues about leaders of all kinds of ways. from their policy statements. they get them from their language. they get them from their smile, their appearance, sense of optimism. and they get it from what turned in to a kind of a physical political ballet last night. it was amazing. >> howard, romney got a tough question from the audience about the tax plan and specific deductions that he would eliminate and still not able to give debates and threw a policy idea out there. pick a number, $25,000 of deductions and credits and decide which ones to use and didn't say that was his policy. he just sort of floated it as an idea.

that's a strange thing to do at this point, isn't it? >> it was. i think the president probably should have said, hey pal, this is your policy? this is your basic policy and you're picking a number? >> right. >> you know, we're not playing a -- you know, i'll take door number two here. i thought the president did a very good job of preparing for this debate with phrases like sketchy deal. >> fuzzy math. >> it's not a five-point plan, it's a one-point plan was the president's best summary of his case against mitt romney's economic theories. on the other hand, mitt romney did a very good job of summarizing his case which is essentially that the president hasn't kept the economic promises. >> right. howard -- >> that's the reason why the polls showed what they did last night on economics. >> right. and just to that point, i mean, everyone from joe scarborough to tom friedman to joe klein all admitted --

>> that's not a broad spectrum. >> be that as it may, they all agreed that obama was back and failed to lay out the economic policy for four years. was it mission accomplished or missed opportunity? >> no. i think he didn't do enough of that. i think he did a better job of trying to say with sometimes with mitt romney's help as in the auto industry exchange, did a better job of explaining what good features of his record there are. and the auto industry's prime among them and mitt romney set him up for that but the president still hasn't said what new and different and better ideas he has for a second term. would do a better job or build on the momentum of the first. instead he spent most of his time raising questiing fears anf mitt romney and saying mitt romney will take us backwards and so forth. the president hasn't done a good enough job of making a positive

case and that's the reason he is in the fight of his life right now. >> all right. howard fineman, see you next week i hope. thank you for joining us. up next, the most important moments last night. we roll on for wednesday, october 17th. remember when you said men are superior drivers? yeah. yeah. then how'd i get this... [ voice of dennis ] ...allstate safe driving bonus check? what is that? so weird, right? my agent, tom, said... [ voice of dennis ] ...only allstate sends you a bonus check for every six months you're accident-free... ...but i'm a woman. maybe it's a misprint. does it look like a misprint? ok. what i was trying... [ voice of dennis ] silence. ♪ ask an allstate agent about the safe driving bonus check. are you in good hands?

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running the spin cycle and the classics of last night. for me no contest picked to pick the favorite moment. >> gangbangers? >> no, close second. close second. it was mr. romney talking about his binders full of women. >> yes. >> let's take a look. >> governor romney, pay equity for women. >> thank you and important topic. and one which i learned a great deal about particularly as i was serving as governor of my state because i had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all of the applicants seemed to be men and i went to my staff and i said, how come the people for the jobs are all men. they said, these are the people with the qualifications. i said, gosh, can't we find some women that are also qualified? and so we took a concerted effort to find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to be members of the cabinet. i went to a number of women's groups and said can you help us find folks?

they brought us binders full of women. sometimes they need to be more flexible. >> congratulations, governor romney. you are the proud father of an internet name. we have all kinds of images last night apparently some registered the website and a great one of president clinton. there's my personal favorite. the lisa frank trapper keeper of women which we were all -- memories of our trapper keepers of elementary school. but i mean, this is funny because what struck me from -- >> sorry! >> where? >> what actually struck me is not the binders full of women but went on to say if you're going to have women in the work force, you have to be flexible and related the anecdote about a woman needing to go home to cook dinner and it seemed very much like a 1950s vision of women in the workforce and the binder story isn't even true.

it was a woman's group that put the binder together for whoever was going to be governor and gave it to romney. >> do you think he realizes it's affirmative action? >> that's what struck me. i liked the underlying point of flexibility and being supportive of women in the work december force but the idea to go out of his way to find women wreaks of affirmative action. >> it is. >> clearly. i agree. and it struck me as an off moment, as well. but, you know, what i wrote about the debate i called it the good, bad and ugly. the bad was libya. and because he was so stuck on that specific -- >> the good? >> when he said, where he said it, how he said it. it would have been good sticking to the broader point. it was not. did good was romney's best moment on the economy and it's why i think the polls showed him doing really well on the economy. obama was asked, i voted for you in 2008. why do you deserve my vote again? everything's really expensive

for me and obama's answer is bizarre. i killed osama bin laden and brought the troops home and i'll continue funding planned parenthood. didn't answer the question. romney did and ticked off a laundry list of areas where obama failed to keep policies. >> i think you know better. i think you know that these last four years haven't been so good as the president just described. he said that by now we'd have unemployment at 5.4%. the difference between where it is and 5.4% is 9 million americans without work. he said that he'd cut in half the deficit. he hasn't done that either. in fact, he doubled it. there are more people in poverty. 1 out of 6 people in poverty. how about food stamps? when he took office 32 million people were on food stamps. today, 47 million people are on food stamps. >> it was really devastating. if only the debate had ended right there. >> of course, there's also some

condition te context and what crashed the economy to send all of those horrible statistics skyrocketing and i think it's the biggest vulnerabilitiment he had no answer and it showed. >> what's did biggest difference between you and george w. bush and how do you differentiate yourself from george w. bush? >> great. thank you. and i appreciate that question. i just want to make sure that i think i was supposed to get that last answer but i want to point out that i don't believe -- >> so biggest vulnerability, looks evasive and gets around to say it's different because of no china and obama care and balancing the budget. that's the problem. the economic prescription, tax prescription proposing is bush -- it's identical. cut the taxes and worry about the deficit later. the woman that's interviewed and said she is not satisfied with romney's answer and wants to give obama four more years. >> i chose the same answer and

obama's part of the answer with tying romney to bush with is the similarities and following romney said, he's worse than bush. >> george bush didn't propose turning medicare in to a voucher. george bush embraced comprehensive immigration reform. he didn't call for self deportation. george bush never suggested that he eliminate funding for planned parenthood. so there are differences between governor romney and george bush but they're not on economic policy. in some ways he's gone to a more extreme place when it comes the social policy and i think that's a mistake. >> saying that mitt romney is more to the right of bush is devastating for romney. and you know that george bush is one of the least popular politicians in the nation because romney hasn't him in the witness protection program. >> it was amazing to be prepared for that question. up next, the first

presidential debate moved the poll numbers but will this one? nate cohen is in the nate spot. and if you don't know what the heck i'm talking about, we'll explain that, too. time for the entrepreneur of the week. olga created a fashion marketplace to help local boutiques that don't have an e-commerce site sell online. she knows that content sells and launched a companion online magazine as a source for what's in. for more, watch "your business" on msnbc. [ male announcer ] it's simple physics... a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis,

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that's the mr. belveder theme song. >> for no reason. >> why not? i love the show. staple. anyway, as the dust settles from the debate, the real question is, what did it mean for the election? if you look at the real clear politics polling average you can see the events that impacted the race with the first debate the largest shift. i'll let jon stewart introduce

the next expert. >> i think we all know what we need. nerds! >> so when you see obama gaining in today's gallup tracking poll, that means that obama's interviews yesterday better than seven days conducted before did debate. >> he went from three ahead in their seven-day track yesterday to five ahead in their track today. >> so that nerd is -- >> nerds. >> in quotes there. nate cohn in the nate spot today. i want to say, first of all, it probably could have been worse for both of us on "the jon stewart" and i think he picked us because we have glasses. >> i thought so, too. >> congratulations on the hair cut, brother. >> i needed it badly. >> let's put those data skills to work here. >> you just need the tape wrapped around the glasses. >> i know that move. i've done that move. >> three guys just like him

coming off the plane. you're the baetd ls in 1960. >> that's a lot better. nate, there was a debate last night and i want to ask you about it. obama had a much better performance than he did the first time. the ins the a polls had him losing to romney 40 points. last night, ahead six, seven points depending on the poll you look at. does this move the needle at all? >> i think it could but not the predebate average so after the first presidential debate, romney did great and got back the people that usually vote for republicans that supported him after the rnc. but moved away from him after the dnc and after the 47% remarks. i think romney's going to keep those folks. the people more interesting are the people that supported obama in september but have moved undecided. and whether they cam back depends on why they moved against him. was it because they were disappointed with the performance and expecting better from obama and now i'm not sure? if so, maybe obama will rebound. if it's because they thought romney was this terrible, evil,

incapable plutocrat then maybe the better debate performance changed their minds. >> let me ask you about that. can you give us a sense that particular group, that group that can come back to obama, how's big's the group and what do we know about them? >> i think if you squint at the numbers they look like they're women, they look like they're young, they're married, they look like they're moderate. i don't think it's a large segment of the electorate. maybe two points. 49 to 47. it appear that is they still approve of his performance and it appears that they have a better impression of romney so it's possible to see how they could go both ways and depending on what happens in the polls after the debate we might learn about which two possibilities explains the movement. >> nate, before we get started, i wanted to say we tease because we love. you're the fifth cyclist and why we give it to you a little bit. in terms of what we have been talking about with obama, the

demographic firewall for a listening time, huge, massive lead with blacks, latinos, unmarried women, do you think that that maintains and helps protect the small lead that he has? >> i think it does and i think it is what's keeping states like colorado and virginia close. i think the national polls show obama with an overwhelming advantage among nonwhite voters and even though he's fallen off a lot with white voters looks like he's at the threshold to win if nonwhite voiters turn out the same rate four years ago. i don't think we know whether or not they will but if the ground game and enthusiasm regenerates, romney would struggle to overcome that especially in nevada and virginia and to a lesser extent south carolina and florida. >> if you look at the snap polls, they have romney squarely winning on the economy. ybs with 65% to 34%.

if we believe what we believed all year the economy is most important to voters and giving the win overall to obama, then what is this sort of portend? that the economy's going to be an important issue and like obama so much to forget that it's so bad? what do you make of that? >> i have one question about the polls that i think worth asking. that's, what did they think before the debate? if these people, this isn't a representative sampling of all adults but the people that watched the debate and possible to envision how the people that watched the debate maybe more republican leaning and maybe obama moved the numbers, maybe not. i think that would be good evidence that the obama campaign's attacks on mitt romney's character have been effective. i think that's evidence of the personal connection of voters to the president has a more durable standing in the polls than maybe the economy would suggest and suggest that obama's strength among his base voters keeps him

in the race longer even if the voters aren't convinced he'll do well on the economy. >> nate, if the election is held today, who do you think would win? >> i think that the battleground state polls give cause to think that obama still has a lead in the electoral college and ohio in particular doesn't look like romney closed the gap but obama has an edge in nevada, wisconsin, iowa, maybe new hampshire and getting to 281 electoral votes. for romney to change my mind he would need to show improvement in ohio. >> nate, this is the regular spot. see you back here next wednesday. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. straight ahead, our favorite mr. belveder memories. no. >> the trapper keepers. >> body language said it all last night. our body language expert is back to analyze the finger pointing, the stare downs and the smackdowns next.

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something this delicious could only come from nature. new nectresse. the 100% natural no-calorie sweetener made from the goodness of fruit. new nectresse. sweetness naturally. town hall debates always have lots of empty space for the candidates to roam which can lead to what we saw last night and mentioned at the top of the show, a scene that looked like two boxers circling each other until the inevitable clash. >> not true, governor romney. >> how much did you cut? how much did you cut them by? >> i'm happy to answer the question. >> all right. and it is -- mr. president have you looked at your pension? >> you know, it's not as big as yours so it doesn't take as long. >> as howard fineman said, it looked like the secret service would jump in.

what messages standed with voters? back with us, senior instructor, chris olrich. how are you? >> great. thank you for having me back. >> sure. we saw lots of clashes, lots of alpha sort of posturing. those sort of moments where they come together. sort of hand up, saying back off, back off. moments where obama sort of turned his back and romney's kind of chasing him. there we see the moment to talk about both sort of hand up, back off. i'm talking. what do you see about the moments coming together in the clashes? >> this is the quintessential endearing moment from the debate an saw it over and over again in the debate. this is a classic gesture. palm down. i disagree with you. you're not right. hold on a second versus open palm of kind of i want to work with you. and it was really a sign that we're in for the clash. this neither side was going to be backing down and both sides bringing their a-game to the conversation and confronting

each other. even belly button to belly button and the three power zones open ready for battle. >> the libya moment had two of those. obama turned and directly looked at romney, finger up, chiding him. that's not how we do things. that's not commander in chief style and then we saw romney try to do it back to obama stand up and stare at him. is that what you said? eyebrows are up. seemed to face attack, face attack. what did you think about those two clashes? >> well, we're talking about libya in the turning point of the debate and for romney, also from the body language perspective, terrible. sitting down. the president turns in a very powerful position. looks at him. points and then goes to the thumb of power and says to him, not on my watch. that's not how we do things and uses the point and then back to this kind of thumb of power and a point and a chop at the same time. really shows open powerful body

language with romney in his place. flip side, romney startlinged by the idea, an act of terror and it's in the transcript and then goes to try to kind of come back to miss crowly, he finds that the movements all over the place. walking forward and back ward. very rattled, very different than the romney talking about the economy. >> chris, i think it's fair to say mitt romney was not deferent shl to president obama at all last night. i want to play a clip of interaction and ask you something about it. let's look at that first. >> you will get your chance in a moment. i'm still speaking and the answer is i believe people think that's the case. that wasn't a question. >> okay. >> that was a statement. i don't think the american people believe this. >> it might have got cut off. stop. you will have your turn to speak later. supposedly there's gasps in the audience when mitt romney said that to president obama. it seems to me there's a real fine line here for a candidate like obama between you don't want to look like you're cowed by the opponent but show some respect for a head of state.

how do you think he straddled that line last night? >> well, in the first debate, we saw romney asertdive and aggressive. here, it kind of was the counter. it didn't work for him and he was the one that came across dismissive. not only palm down gestures and taking on the president, he was also taking on candy crowley in the same way with the gestures at times for more time and it didn't work for him in the first debate but in this debate, the second debate, it was dismissive and at times disrespectful. >> another thing that we observed was the difference in the reaction of the families from the first debate to the second debate of the romneys in particular. you know, after the first debate, the romneys were very relaxed, big smiles, lingered on the stage. after the second debate, much grimmer faces, much stiffer between the romneys and seemed like a very different situation out of the second debate. >> well, absolutely. i mean, this was an intense debate. you know, the only real brevity moment is the moment they go

back and forth on the pensions and the whole room laughs a little bit to relieve the tension but so seeing the families come up and really kind of seeing that, you know, that intensity. michele obama and barack obama kind of patting each other like a reassurance and, you know, ann romney looking nervous walking up and kind of subdued and we need to ask them what's going on for them. we don't want to mind read and we pick up that perception that it feels awkward for them, especially all on the stage together and then once they separate. i believe the president lingered afterward for 30 minutes and much more relaxed by the end of the debate, obviously, than the beginning. >> chris, give me a brief wrap up. who made the improvements? who did what right? >> s.e. we saw the president finally kind of turn it around. everyone is talking about even the polls said dramatically different. right? he kept the chin up, the power chin for him and he was able to turn in to and confront mitt

romney. mitt romney was really strong in terms of when he came to talking about in the wheelhouse, the economy. the body language open, strong, very comfortable. the power zones. it's all open toward us. he felt very comfortable and we'll see what happens for him moving forward where he struggled was in the foreign policy element of this. libya and really attacking the president on what he's vulnerable on and his body language, nervous, all over the place. so we'll see if that translates and moves forward in to the final debate for him at his weakest on foreign policy. >> thank you very much. we'll be working on the power thumb. >> my hand down. disagreement. >> s.e. tell the rest of them, hey, wait a minute. >> hey. i disagree. >> she does that all the time, chris. >> she doesn't need help. she's got this. thank you, brother. >> thank you for having me. i loved the libya moment!

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call now to request your free decision guide. and learn more about the kinds of plans that will be here for you now -- and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is. on monday president obama and mitt romney are set to square off in boca where it's likely that the trending topics and top searches very different

of what we saw last night. that's because the third and final showdown is all about foreign policy. from israel to syria to libya to trying to figure out how romney differs from previous republican administrations to the elusive obama doctrine, there's a lot to get in. i fully expect them to struggle to when to act and when not to act leading to moments like this. >> in this sense, never again is a challenge to us all. to pause and to look within. never again is a challenge to societies. we're joined today by communities who have made it your mission to prevent mass atrocities in our time. syrian people have not given up. which is why we cannot give up. >> would you consider the current egyptian regime an ally of the united states? >> i don't think we would consider them an ally but we don't consider them an enemy.

>> so, you might be wondering, can we really do 90 minutes on foreign policy? i think we can. i'm looking forward to it. i mean, pick a place on the map and there's something important happening to our national security or our economic security there so i fully expect and talked about this before. i expect romney to go at obama's foreign policy from the left and the right. i expect him to try and pinpoint that elusive obama doctrine. for example, we've involved ourselves in wars in libya and yemen and uganda. we have been on the periphery in syria and egypt. ignored the iranian green revolution. of "the chicago tribune yts saying that when historians sit down decades from now to address the events of the 21st century, they'll have no trouble explaining why barack obama president. they lengthed him out of a firm conviction the u.s. not involved in enough wars. from drone attacks in yemen to

killing of american citizens without due process or extradition, there's meat to cover. that doesn't even begin to touch on russia and china. so i think there's a lot of ground to cover. i'm looking forward to looking meting it out. lastly, i hope romney gets another swipe at libya. >> i love the attempt to make obama look bad on foreign policy after what was the worst foreign policy in the history of america. but moving apart from that, the foreign policy debate is extraordinarily important. foreign policy and economy are inter-related. you can't just say let's talk about the economy. and then foreign policy, the costs in iraq over $800 million, which is part of the reason we're in the recession we are today. and, look, the future of iran is extremely important to where we go militarily, our relationship with the rest of the world and economically for the next

several years, if not next decade or two. i look forward to seeing what they do -- >> one of the criticisms is that barack obama has simply lifted george w. bush's foreign policy. >> you're right. he has continued many of the policies george bush had. >> the worst in the history of american presidency, according to you. >> you can't complain. >> i wasn't. i was laying out -- >> after we hear what they have to say -- i mean, i hope they get into immigration and climate change as national security issues. but looking at the questions that came from actual voters last night, one was on foreign policy. just one. which i think is indicative of the fact, this is not what people really care about this election. this is not what they're focused on. 90 minutes of foreign policy, yes, it's important but i just don't see this debate getting the ratings or being as pivotal as the first two have been

because the topics are not what voters are paying attention to. >> i'm really excited. >> i think there's a potential problem here for obama. romney doesn't want to talk too much about foreign policy but you saw in that poll we had earlier about who won the economy debate last night. romney got a pretty resounding victory. i think obama's answer on what will the next four years be like, i don't think he had a strong answer. i think this is a missed opportunity for this campaign. there is a strong answer. it was proposed last year when the stimulus, which was watered down because of republican obstructionism, had not sufficiently pulled the country out of recession. he proposed another american jobs act. which every economist agreed. there was going to grow the economy, add jobs, get us out of it faster. it died a complete and total death because of republican obstruction. i think there was a point there for obama to make last night and he should have been making throughout this campaign about, listen, there is still -- there are still lots of problems out there. i've had solutions.

republicans obstructed them. this election is about delivering a message to the do nothing republican congress. you're standing with me on this and if you stay with me now, it's going to be different and they're going to have to work -- >> he didn't do that on the campaign trail. >> he can't do it in this debate. >> he can't campaign on that. he has -- >> i think that's part of it. i think it's harry truman, do nothing congress of '48. you could have run across this republican congress. the approval rating is 47% for these guys. >> they said they wouldn't and then they haven't done it. >> up next, steve kornacki's tribute to george mcgovern. for the younger guy, steve will explain why you should know this guy. [ male announcer ] this is sheldon, whose long dy setting up the news starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news.

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that thing douglas macarthur said about old soldiers can be true about old politicians. one day they're in the thick of the action, exit the stage, then we forget they're still around until we're thumbing through the newspaper we upon an obituary and we say, oh him or her. not every politician is automatically a giant of history. the script doesn't always go that way and sometimes it shouldn't. george mcgovern is 90 years old and he doesn't have much time left. nbc news has lessonarned this afternoon that mcgovern is nonresponsive in hospice care in his home of south dakota. his family and friends are around. this gives us a chance to remind us who this man is and how much his life mattered to this country.

bobby kennedy called him the most decent man in the senate. i go farther than that. i doubt there's been a more decent man in politics. is he a liberal democrat. he is an unusually honest man from unusually humble roots who heart is and always was with the underdog. grew up in the worst of dust bowl poverty, son of a methodist minister, even a clergy man himself for a few years perform appear bombing of pearl harbor, he flew planes. the experience shaped him and called to politics by a noble purpose, to fight poverty, end hunger, stop war and to look out for the little guy, especially when no one else was willing to do it. history says he lost one of the worst landslides in 1972. he carried one state, massachusetts. history forgets the promise his campaign began with. a coalition of young veoters wh

didn't want any more cousins, brothers, classmates dying in vietnam. blue collar voters who wanted a chance to get ahead. richard nixon saw to it they were divided. mcgovern, the preacher's son, was the candidate of amnesty and abortion. that's what nixon told his silent majority and they believed him. it was a horribly unfair chair caricature. nixon himself resigned in disgrace. there are worse things than losing, mcgovern would tell people. this country's politics were better with george mcgovern a part of them. this country is a better place because of him. that does it for "the cycle." martin bashir, it's all yours. >> here here. thank you for that. it's wednesday, october 17th. today we have a binder full of facts that team romney just doesn't want to hear about.